General Motors Highlights Safety Technologies At New Active-Safety Test Area

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As the vehicle as we know it becomes more connected, safety plays an even more important role. Never have human beings had more distractions behind the wheel than today. While responsibility ultimately falls on the driver, accidents are always bound to happen, even the slightest fender-bender.

General Motors is taking the idea of automotive safety in stride, as it has highlighted the current technologies available across each of its brands, and what the future holds for safety tech.

All of the testing and research takes place at the newly-opened Active-Safety Testing area at the Milford Proving Grounds. The $14 million, 52-acre site officially opened Friday and will be home to future safety advancements for General Motors.

“Our comprehensive safety strategy of helping customers before, during and after a crash continues,” said Jeff Boyer, vice president of GM Global Vehicle Safety. “GM historically has been a leader in the development and testing of safety technologies, and applying our deep knowledge and expertise to prevent crashes from happening in the first place.”

Examples of technologies that have been tested for final production use include city-speed front automatic braking, front pedestrian braking, rear camera mirror, night vision and curb-view camera.

The technologies listed will be sprinkled in across the GM portfolio, with the 2016 Chevrolet Malibu receiving the latest tech in form of front-pedestrian braking and the new Teen Driving Mode.

In the future, the Active-Safety test area will play a crucial role in V2V technology, or vehicle-to-vehicle communication. V2V is a dedicated short-range radio communication between cars, allowing them to “talk” to one another. Cars may share essential data including speed, location and braking. V2V will be a standard feature on the 2017 Cadillac CTS.

“General Motors is committed to setting a new standard for global product safety, and developing vehicles that continue to provide leading safety technologies which can help drivers avoid crashes,” said Boyer. “This facility will accelerate GM’s development and testing of innovative safety technologies.”

Hope they finally offer blind side alert across the product line and don’t charge an arm and leg for it.

To get blind side alert in my 2014 ATS Premium, I had to spring for the Driver Awareness Pkg >$3K option. Amazing that a $45K to $55K car doesn’t have this standard. There are really cheap cars with this standard.

My 2015 Colorado doesn’t offer it at all, just the “lame” lane departure alert which drove me crazy about 2 days into ownership, since I tend to hug the edge. Got tired on the constant racket and shut it off.